One of my earliest vehicle-related memories I have is of my father's old green 1950 Ford F-1 pickup, which he owned while farming near Fairbank, Iowa. It wasn't really an old truck then; only a little over ten years old, in fact, which today would be considered fairly recent. But back then, a decade of hard farm use had made that old F-1 a lot like a cranky baby; it never went anywhere without its rattle.
I'm not sure if it is because of that early inculcation, but I've always been a Ford guy. So, it was pleasant to see that Ford has just reported its best annual U.S. new vehicle sales since 2019, mostly in internal-combustion engine and hybrid units.
Ford Motor on Tuesday said its U.S. vehicle sales last year increased 6% to achieve the company’s best annual sales since 2019.
The Detroit automaker reported sales of 2.2 million vehicles in 2025, including a 2.7% uptick to more than 545,200 units during the fourth quarter. In 2019, the automaker sold 2.42 million vehicles in the U.S.
Ford finished the year as the third-largest automaker in the U.S. behind Toyota Motor and domestic sales leader General Motors
That's the place Ford has held for some time, so we can count that as a march-in-place; the good news is that Ford isn't alone here. The American auto industry as a whole is doing pretty well and has been throughout 2025. Ford, though, seems to be doing especially well:
“We’re really pleased with where we finished the year,” Andrew Frick, president of Ford’s nonfleet vehicle businesses, said during a media call. “As the year unfolded, we saw really good performance throughout. ... We outperformed the industry for 10 straight months.”
There used to be an old saying that "...what was good for Detroit (meaning the auto industry) was good for America." A few decades ago, when the Big Three American auto companies were centered around Detroit, that made a lot of sense. Of course, a lot has changed since then. My big, beautiful 2022 F-350 diesel, for instance, was built at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. But the main point applies, to a certain extent; new car sales are a pretty good indicator of the country's economic health. And according to this and similar reports from other quarters, new car and truck sales are doing pretty well. What's interesting about General Motors' numbers is the uptick in Cadillac sales; we might very well infer that the uptick in GM's luxury label is an even stronger sign.
Read More: Ford Now Dropping All-Electric F-150 Lightning Amid $13B EV Losses
How Will We Get by Without Backup Cameras? Ford Recalls 1.9M Trucks for Faulty Units.
Here's the part that will have the climate scolds crying in their soy lattes:
Like many automakers, Ford’s all-electric vehicles business notably declined 14.1% last year, including a roughly 52% plummet during the fourth quarter. A nearly 22% increase in sales of Ford’s hybrid vehicles, which the company expects to grow, assisted in offsetting those losses.
Traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines continued to dominate Ford’s sales, representing about 86% of the company’s volume in 2025.
Reality is a harsh mistress. Except in certain niche markets, pure EVs just don't make a lot of sense. It's good that people are starting to realize that, and new car/truck sales are reflecting it. Meanwhile, good going, Ford!
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